Emergency Engagement

CHAPTER SIX

O UT OF THE corner of his eye, Rafael was aware of Victoria holding court with a couple of the partners. The partners looked a little alarmed. In a minute, he would think about rescuing them, because Victoria had obviously had a little too much to drink and the canapés had not even made their appearance. By the time dinner was served, who knew where she would be on the inebriation scale?

Clement was saying something about business and Rafael dragged his thoughts back in line. It was a little before seven and they were all milling around in the sitting room, which was spacious and kitted out with an assortment of chairs and sofas all in shades of creams and pale-gold. Everything was artfully arranged so that no one would be left out of any group conversations. Unless anyone wanted to lurk in a corner, they were compelled to sit in a sociable arrangement and chat. Excellent for fostering a cordial atmosphere amongst people who might not know one another that well. Staff had been hired for the week and champagne flutes were being refilled.

Clement had turned to Geoffrey, a dapper middle-aged guy who was desperate for his small company to be amalgamated under a bigger umbrella so that their software could expand. Clement was musing about the stock market and what might prove a good investment. Rafael wondered if he was aware of his girlfriend over-gesticulating in the background. It didn’t seem so. He was a talented businessman whose ability to focus was legendary. Victoria could have been doing cartwheels on the ceiling.

Rafael glanced at his watch and drained his glass—whisky, not champagne.

Where was Sammy?

She’d disappeared to the market first thing and since then he had only clapped eyes on her once, in the kitchen, where she’d been surrounded by mountains of fresh fruit and vegetables, and had shooed him out before he’d had a chance to remind her that she had to make an appearance in time for drinks.

Hell, was she even thinking of that kiss they’d shared? Because he couldn’t get it out of his mind. He could still taste it on his mouth!

Let the two sous chefs he had hired get on with the nitty-gritty, he had told her. They needed the practice before they took up their positions at his hotel, and he and Sammy had to keep up their charade.

‘I’ll be there, don’t worry.’ She had pushed him firmly in the direction of the door. ‘I haven’t forgotten our deal!’

He breathed in deeply and remembered those big, green eyes staring up at him with amusement, and those soft lips that had done too good a job of reminding him what they’d felt like against his.

Rafael wasn’t sure whether it was the novelty of their situation or the fact that there was history between them, but he was drawn to Sammy in a way that was confusing and a little unsettling. Where did that pull come from which made his mind wander off in the middle of back-to-back meetings; and which made him lose concentration until the only thing he could think of was seeing what she was up to? It had driven him to seek her out in the kitchen...because he just couldn’t put that kiss to the back of his mind.

He wondered whether maybe the stark contrast between Victoria and Sammy was somehow messing with his head even though it shouldn’t have, of course, because Victoria was an ex and Sammy was... Sammy wasn’t even current in the truest sense of the word.

Victoria was a reminder of his greatest screw-up when it came to any relationship he had ever had with a woman. He hadn’t so much as taken his eye off the ball as never had his eye on it in the first place. In the dying throes of their relationship, clinging and sobbing had alternated with threats of revenge, followed swiftly by tearful apologies and yet more clinging. It had been a mess.

Was his mind doing some kind of foxtrot between what Victoria represented and what Sammy represented, coerced into a phony relationship? Whereas Victoria had been an uncontrolled mess, Sammy couldn’t be more controlled. She was as cool as a cucumber. She had no idea how those passing, dutiful touches had turned him on the evening before, whether he liked to admit it or not. She was playing a game for his benefit, and only because the carrot he had dangled in front of her had been too tempting to resist.

For the first time in his life, he was with a woman who wasn’t chasing behind him and wasn’t after more than he was willing to give. She didn’t want to hear his back story so that she could get closer. In fact, she wasn’t that interested in his back story at all. Their paths had crossed briefly when they’d been teenagers, and the experience had left a sour taste in her mouth. Left to her own devices, there was no way she would ever have sought him out because she just didn’t like him very much. She wasn’t impressed by his money, even though it was thanks to his millions that she was being given a passport to everything she had ever wanted for herself.

Although, he grudgingly had to admit, it was also thanks to his money that she’d lost the space she’d banked on having for herself in the first place—swings and roundabouts.

Whatever was going on, he was still trying to make sense of it. Victoria and Sammy side by side... Was Sammy somehow benefiting from the comparison—was that it? He was always in control when it came to women, so what was happening here? It was puzzling but it was also...exciting...even though he knew that this kind of excitement wasn’t something he should be indulging.

His last brief fling had ended four months ago, with a striking model who had told him that he needed to grow up—by which she’d meant start committing to more than whatever lay a day or two ahead. He’d politely turned down the suggestion.

Maybe he was sick of models and was now vulnerable to falling for a feisty, down-to-earth girl from his past who didn’t think twice about laughing at him and couldn’t care less about commitment—at least, not with him. Was that it? He felt that, if he couldn’t make sense of what he was feeling, he couldn’t control it, which obviously wouldn’t do.

He was in the process of trying to juggle his thoughts with whatever conversation was going on with the two guys standing by him when he glanced towards the door and...there she was.

For a few seconds, all the background noise faded and Rafael drew in a sharp breath as he stared at her over the rim of his glass with dark, brooding intensity. Every muscle in his body had tightened and the thud of a powerful sexual awareness hit him like a sledgehammer.

She was wearing the simplest of summer dresses, something straight and flowery, with tiny pearl buttons all the way down the front and thin spaghetti straps. She wore flat sandals, no jewellery except for some stud earrings and next to no make-up. She looked young, fresh, wholesome and incredibly sexy.

He cleared his throat and managed to propel himself towards her, dumping his empty glass en route and grabbing a replacement in the process.

‘Sammy, my darling, you’re here.’ He managed to sound hearty yet caressingly intimate at the same time.

‘Rafael, my love. Where else would I be?’

Sammy felt her heart pick up speed. She’d almost completely managed to avoid him during the course of the day. First, she’d been at the market, and then later she’d made sure that one of her young helpers, Jemima, had done the honours serving a casual picnic lunch at the pool house where the workers had been taking a break to eat.

He’d shown up at the kitchen at some point, purely to chat to her about her duties. She’d glanced at him leaning indolently against the door frame and had gone hot and cold with sudden, dramatic awareness. God knew, she’d tried to put that kiss they’d shared into perspective, but she hadn’t been able to. It had detonated like a hand grenade tossed into her calm, ordered life.

She didn’t get it. How could he manage to get under her skin the way he did? He shouldn’t be able to bring a smile to her lips, and he certainly shouldn’t be able to ratchet up her curiosity about him until her head ached, but he did both. She’d kept telling herself that this was just a job, and that just about seemed to work until she laid eyes on him.

Such as now. He was in black: black jeans and a black figure-hugging tee-shirt, tan loafers and no socks. Nothing about him screamed ‘wealth’ and yet he still managed to look incredibly rich, laid back and sophisticated. Just behind him, she caught a glimpse of Victoria narrowly watching their interaction with a champagne flute half-raised, as though she’d been on the verge of gulping down the contents.

‘You didn’t expect me to still be shackled to the oven, did you?’ she purred, conscious of Victoria’s eyes on them. She was also aware of his eyes on her, a little amused and a little surprised. He’d obviously thought that getting her to pretend to respond to him convincingly would be as difficult as pulling teeth.

She looked up at him, placed her hand flat on his chest and stood on tiptoe, half-closing her eyes, mouth pursed for the kiss everyone would be expecting—something light and brief, in keeping with the fact that he wasn’t the touchy-feely sort and public displays of affection weren’t really his thing.

His mouth was cool and she started as he nudged his tongue between her lips, teasing a response from her and getting just the response she knew she definitely shouldn’t give. Her hand curled into a fist, clasping the soft cotton of his tee-shirt. Her eyelids fluttered as she unconsciously gravitated towards him until their bodies were pressed together.

Sammy was drowning in that kiss. Her breathing slowed and, when he eventually made to pull away, she found that she was trembling.

‘Now, there’s a surprise,’ he murmured softly into her ear.

She cupped the side of his cheek with her hand, still on tiptoe to reach him, but pulling him down slightly so that, as softly as he’d whispered into her ear, she could whisper back, ‘Why? I do know the rules of the game, Rafael. Besides, your ex is all eyes. You don’t want her to start getting suspicious, do you? I thought that was the whole point of the game.’

‘So it is, my darling, so it is.’

Sammy pulled back, tore her gaze away from his and then peered around him to the assembled crowd. She smiled.

‘Young love!’ One of the older women raised her champagne flute with a broad, approving smile. Sammy laughed and pretend-punched Rafael in the stomach. She said something about maybe young love for her, but slightly less young for Rafael, who was a few years older.

She avoided Victoria. She mingled and chatted but was doubly aware of the other woman’s shrewd eyes on her, and of Rafael always nearby, probably making sure she didn’t put her foot in it somehow by saying the wrong thing.

He gently tugged her back as everyone began making their way to the dining room where dinner was being served. Ahead of them, Victoria had fallen into step with Clement. His arm was around her waist but he was talking to one of the other men. If he was even aware of the towering blonde at his side, then he gave very little evidence of it.

‘Just look at that,’ Sammy muttered to Rafael as they trailed behind them.

‘Look at what?’

‘Victoria and Clement.’

‘What about them?’

‘He’s barely paying her a scrap of attention.’

‘Not sure what you’d like him to be doing right now. He’s pushing eighty. I don’t think hijinks on the dance floor are going to work for him.’

Sammy glanced up to find Rafael grinning broadly. He looked down at her. Their eyes met and her heart sped up.

‘Why on earth would he go out with her if he wasn’t interested in her?’

‘Of course he’s interested in her, although, in fairness, possibly not for her mind.’

‘He’s a really nice guy, but I suppose when you’ve got tons of money, and you can have whatever toy you want, you’re always going to pick the one that’s the shiniest.’

‘He is getting over his wife’s death,’ Rafael said gently. ‘Maybe the shiniest toy in the toy box is just what he needs for his recovery. Besides, it’s a symbiotic relationship.’

‘Meaning?’

‘Victoria likes his money and he likes being seen with her on his arm.’

‘Rich men—they’re all the same.’

‘Tut-tut, Sammy. That sounds a lot like a generalisation.’

‘Does it?’ She stopped dead in her tracks and looked at him. ‘I’m thinking that your track record is along those lines!—beautiful women hanging onto you and you having fun with them even though you’re not in it for their minds? Honestly, I just don’t get women sometimes.’

Rafael was still grinning. ‘You’re very fetching when you’re standing on your soap box. Has anyone ever told you that?’

‘Actually, no.’ But she could feel herself tumbling into his dark gaze. She drew in a sharp breath when he raised one finger to trail it along her cheek, finally outlining her mouth and letting his finger linger there for a few seconds. Her eyes widened and everything in her body suddenly began to disobey the rules. Her nipples tightened against the thin cotton of her dress. She was so flat that she could easily do without a bra, and she wasn’t wearing one now. A spreading dampness between her legs made her want to rub them together. Her pulse was racing.

‘There’s no need for that,’ she managed to say breathlessly as his finger continued to linger on her face.

‘Oh, yes,’ Rafael apologised in a voice that sounded far from apologetic. ‘I didn’t realise that there’s just two of us here. Everyone else has made it to the dining room. We’d better race there or else they’ll be wondering where we are—maybe thinking that the love birds decided to dump the dinner and just do the sex.’

‘Don’t say that!’

‘Just a little joke, Sammy. No need to get ruffled about it. You’re as red as a beetroot.’

‘Yes, well, it pays to remember that this is...is a charade. It’s not real! We just do...that kind of stuff when other people are around.’

Rafael had obediently lowered his hand but there was coolness where his finger had been and Sammy hated herself for wishing that it was still caressing her cheek and setting her body aflame in the process.

Dump the dinner and just do the sex...

The throwaway remark sent her imagination whirling into frantic overdrive. She spun round on her heels and began walking briskly towards the dining room.

She just knew that he was still grinning as he followed her. Could the man see what was going through her head? Did he know the effect he had on her with those casual, meaningless touches?

She sincerely hoped not. Sammy knew the kind of guy he was. He was a rich man who snapped his fingers and had any woman he wanted come running at speed to do his bidding until he got bored with them. He would call that a generalisation but there was more than just a grain of truth in it—more than several thousand grains of truth in it. The last thing she wanted was for him to think that she was anything like all those other women—floored by his charm, bewitched by his wit and intelligence and turned on by his stupid good looks.

She forced herself to remember him as a teenager, bunking off school and leading her brother astray—much safer. But as they hit the dining room, which was abuzz with everyone peering at the seating plan, laughing and chatting, he caught up with her. She felt the weight of his arm around her waist as he pulled her back against him and lowered his head to breathe in her newly washed hair.

‘This is one of those times, Sammy,’ he murmured, and she twisted so that she was looking up at him with a puzzled frown.

‘One of what times?’

‘I can’t have my beautiful partner looking as though we’ve just had an argument. We need to be married at least a year for that. So, my darling...’ He kissed her softly, sweetly and briefly, and that soft, sweet, brief kiss knocked her senseless.

Her head was all over the place as they drew apart but it was ages before she could really focus on what was going on around her: the praise for the food she’d made; the questions about the market and what the fresh produce had been like; her plans for the place she wanted to open when she and Rafael returned to England. The champagne continued to flow, and she knew that she was smiling and chatting and answering questions, but all she could think of was Rafael: the way he made her feel and the stupidity of feeling the way he made her feel.

She even forgot about Victoria, though her not-so-dulcet tones seemed to dominate whatever conversation was happening at the other end of the long, rectangular table.

Between courses, Sammy excused herself so that she could supervise the next array of dishes to be served. She’d had just two glasses of champagne, and her head was in a very sober place when she re-entered the dining room to announce her dessert, only to be pre-empted by Victoria; she had gone from tipsy to word-slurring over the course of the evening.

Sammy shot Rafael a panicked glance as the towering blonde rose unsteadily to her feet and tapped her spoon on her champagne flute until everyone fell into bemused silence.

He gestured to Sammy to come and take her empty seat, and Sammy duly went to sit next to him. She was immediately reassured by the mere fact of him sitting next to her. Something about the warmth and rock-solid self-assurance he emanated made her feel as though, whatever happened, he would be able to sort it out.

Desserts were now being served as the room waited for Victoria to speak with Jemima and another assistant, Trisha, placing delicate bowls of tropical fruit salad and soursop ice-cream in front of everyone.

Victoria looked around imperiously, swaying slightly. Next to her, Clement was frowning with a hint of disapproving impatience.

‘What’s going on, Rafael?’ Sammy snapped under her breath.

‘I feel this is a “wait and see” situation,’ he murmured in return but then he clasped her hand under the table, resting it on his thigh. Sammy felt herself relax just a little.

‘To the love birds!’ Victoria pinned her eyes on them and raised her glass. Everyone else duly raised theirs too and Sammy decided that she could deal with a drunken toast to love birds.

‘Who would have thought? What a shock for the man who lives in the gossip columns to have finally found true love, and so quickly !’

Sammy’s smile froze and her fingers curled a little more tightly with Rafael’s.

‘I just hope it’s the real deal!’ Victoria waggled her finger in a reproving manner while everyone began to look just a tiny bit uncomfortable. ‘Because this is one very special lady!’

‘That’s enough, Victoria.’ Clement’s voice was mild but sufficiently commanding for her to hesitate and glance down at him.

‘I just want to wish the happy couple my congratulations!’ Victoria pouted. She stroked Clement’s head and swigged some champagne for good measure. Then she looked back at them and flashed her eyes with teasing intent. ‘So, can you tell us if we all need to start looking for wedding hats...?’

Sammy froze. She felt Rafael tense next to her. He rose to his feet, coolly thanked Victoria for her good wishes and then looked at Clement. ‘I think,’ he murmured, ‘that girlfriend of yours needs to get some beauty sleep just as soon as dessert is done and dusted. A little too much champagne can sometimes be a very bad idea.’

It wrapped up the moment of awkwardness, but twenty minutes later, with everyone tired and yawning and the conversation back to less fraught topics, Clement paused by Rafael. He looked at him, then at Sammy, with a smile.

‘Well, my boy.’ He leant towards them, his eyes sharp and as bright as a sparrow’s. ‘You’ve found yourself a good one here.’

Sammy blushed. Her gut feeling was that Rafael might perhaps disagree with that statement, considering they’d only been thrown into this situation by a series of unfortunate events.

‘Victoria may have had a little too much of the fine stuff for her own good, but she was spot-on when she said that this is a very special lady.’ He tapped the side of his nose and smiled. ‘Love at first sight—although it’s not quite that in your case—is certainly to be recommended. My Gail and I fell in love and within minutes I knew that I was going to marry her.’

His voice was wistful. ‘I thoroughly approve. So, if a proposal is on the cards, then you truly have my congratulations. It certainly is a fine thought to know that the company my dear wife and I built together will be under the auspices of a family man whose heart is in the right place.’

He straightened and nodded to Victoria, who was fidgeting in the background. She followed him out of the room along with everyone else, leaving Sammy and Rafael in the dining room on their own.

Rafael rose and immediately went to a sideboard and helped himself to some whisky, grabbing a glass of wine for Sammy. He shut the door to the dining room and slanted a glance at the remains of the day: plates, glasses and yet more glasses and bottles, all to be cleared later. Right now, he was busy wondering what the hell had just happened.

‘So...’ He sat, manoeuvring his chair so that he was facing her and leaned his long legs to one side.

‘So...’ Sammy parroted dubiously.

‘Victoria was just mischief-making.’

‘She implied that we were about to get married. We’ve gone from being an item to being practically engaged. I’m not sure I’m that comfortable with that.’

‘Why? One remark about wedding hats from someone who’d had too much to drink does not an impending marriage make.’

‘Why? Why? Engagements and weddings are serious business! At least, they are to people like me who live in the real world.’

‘My world’s very real.’

Sammy swept aside that interruption and fixed him with a baleful stare. ‘Plus, poor Clement seems to now think that wedding rings are going to be exchanged.’

‘Yes, that’s a little unfortunate,’ Rafael admitted. ‘He may have gone off the rails with Victoria in an attempt to distract himself from his grief, but he’s always been a family guy, and the fact that he now assumes that I’m a reformed character might ease any lingering doubts he might have about this deal.’

‘Is that likely? I thought it was all but done and dusted.’

‘To quote that well-worn saying, “there’s many a slip twixt cup and lip”... I wouldn’t want him to start suspecting that there’s anything fishy going on.’ He raised his eyebrows. ‘You shouldn’t have been so charming.’

Rafael sipped his drink and looked at her. She was blushing. He’d never met any woman who blushed as much as she did, but then, she had none of the hard edges of the women he dated. She was basically a country girl with wide-eyed dreams who believed in love and romance. As she’d just said, engagements and weddings were a serious business. She’d been his fake girlfriend and now practically his fake fiancée—at least while they were out here—and he definitely shouldn’t look at her the way he was doing now. He lowered his eyes even though he could still see her image printed on his retina.

‘Nothing changes,’ he said gruffly. ‘Victoria knows where her bread is temporarily buttered and, as you can see, she may tower over Clement but he’s still the guy in charge.’

‘It just feels as though we’re on a slippery slope...’

‘Same slope, different wording. ‘Fiancée’ implies commitment, a bond that goes beyond two people in it for a bit of fun. We could start launching into disclaimer speeches but my feeling is that that would just end up muddying the waters. This deal is hugely important and not just to me. The ripples of its outcome will be felt by many. There’s nothing to worry about—after all, what’s a fiancée but a partner with a ring on her finger?’

Even so, Rafael agreed with her. It did feel as though they were on a slippery slope, but what confused him was that the slippery slope wasn’t the result of this small complication. An inebriated, vengeful ex-girlfriend could say what she liked. Neither he nor Sammy had admitted anything about heading down the aisle any time soon, and if anyone else mentioned that at any point he knew that he could always laugh it off.

No, the slippery slope was what was happening inside him: the wild excitement he was getting from Sammy playing the part of his devoted girlfriend; the sneaky enjoyment he got from the blurring of those lines between reality and fantasy. It surprised him, but when he thought about it stopping some crazy desire in him refused to see common sense.

Even now, discussing Victoria and her malicious interjection with no one around to witness anything, he still wanted to reach out and brush his hand against her cheek to feel the cool smoothness of her skin against his palm.

He balled his fists and gulped down some whisky.

Sammy didn’t seem to notice his turmoil; in fact, she seemed to be deep in thought. ‘You’re right,’ she said eventually.

‘So we’re good?’ Rafael asked, snapping back to the present.

‘It’s just a week.’

‘I could have a quiet word with Clement as a precaution...mention that we’re both very private people who would rather our relationship remain private before any official announcements are made.’

‘What about everyone else?’

‘I very much doubt any of them has any interest in broadcasting anything. Victoria is the loose cannon but if Clement passes on my words of caution, then have no fear, she’ll listen to him.’

Strip away any media coverage a vindictive ex might spread, pretend that was never going to happen, and things still seemed to have shifted. The game felt a whole lot more serious now. The physical contact...the urge to touch... It felt as though there might be quicksand under his feet...

‘What do you see in them, Rafael?’

‘Come again?’

‘Victoria...all those models you go out with...what do you see in them? I mean, Victoria might have been a little screwed up and got hold of the wrong end of the stick with you, but those are the sort of women you date, aren’t they? Models—a rich man with no other wish than to have a shiny bauble on his arm, like Clement. Although, I feel that Clement will soon tire of his shiny bauble because he knows what it’s like to have the real deal at his side. But you, Rafael... I just don’t get it.’

Rafael shook his head in a cobweb-clearing kind of way, but her eyes remained steady when he finally looked at her.

‘You don’t have to answer that,’ she said abruptly. ‘This is a pretend relationship, and in pretend relationships two people don’t have to do anything but pretend to be attracted to one another and pretend to know each other’s history.’

She began rising to her feet and he impulsively reached out to stay her. Why? He was as surprised by the gesture as she seemed to be, although she slowly sat back down and stared at him. Those amazing eyes, he thought distractedly. How could green, calm, slightly curious eyes be so distracting?

‘It’s complicated,’ he heard himself mutter.

‘Life’s complicated,’ Sammy returned. ‘Look at where the pair of us are right now! Two people who couldn’t be at further ends of the pole when it comes to...just about everything.’ She paused. ‘What’s complicated?’

‘I didn’t want to end up like my dad.’

‘What on earth do you mean?’

‘He sold his soul to a woman and that woman took him for a ride. The woman was my mother. When my dad and I moved to your part of the world, I was in a pretty rough place. My mother had dumped the marriage in favour of a guy with a lot more money and my father fell apart at the seams—as if someone had pulled a vital piece of thread that had made the whole shoddy garment unravel. I picked up the pieces, and realised that it was no good handing over your soul to any woman, because the end of that road might not be what you had in mind. So, yes, I date models because I like knowing what I’m getting into. I enjoy the fact that they like my money. I can handle that.’

‘Your poor dad. I wish I’d known him a little better. He always seemed so polite and quiet.’

‘He was a broken man. I prefer to go through life in one piece. Don’t get me wrong—I love my father very much—but that never made me blind to his faults.’

‘He was just someone who trusted,’ Sammy said gently. ‘Which isn’t a crime. What’s love but a leap of faith?’

‘Which,’ Rafael drawled, rising to his feet and shoving his hands in the pockets of his black jeans, ‘makes me realise just how perfect this arrangement between us is. No leap of faith, and we both know exactly where we stand.’

Sammy smiled back at him and stood up, brushing away some non-existent crumbs from her dress.

‘I should stay down here for a bit and supervise what to do with the leftover food. I don’t want anything to go to waste.’

Rafael nodded. ‘Up to you,’ he said gruffly. He raked his fingers through his hair and shifted. Yes, she should stay down here...but he didn’t want her to. He wanted her right by him, near him. Was he feeding this attraction? It was a disturbing thought and one he wanted to dismiss straight away. Boundaries were needed, and distance—none of this unholy want that overtook all his common sense.

‘Yes, it is. So, I’ll be up when I’m up, and Rafael...? You’re right. Nothing to see here, as far as Victoria and her mischief-making goes, but it would be a good idea to say something to Clement just in case. And as for this thing between us, this arrangement? It works well because we know the boundary lines between us and there are no leaps of faith to be made.’

She laughed. ‘I would say, as understandings go, as a win-win situation, it couldn’t be more perfect.’